Preview — Men Explain Things to Me
by Rebecca Solnit

Men Explain Things to Me

In her comic, scathing essay “Men Explain Things to Me,” Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don’t, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters.

She ends on a serious noIn her comic, scathing essay “Men Explain Things to Me,” Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don’t, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters.

She ends on a serious note— because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, “He’s trying to kill me!”

This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the writer Virginia Woolf ’s embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women....more

Shelleyyes, many times. For instance, I was on the Board of Directors of a non-profit. When I would offer suggestions, there would be a silence. Often in the…moreyes, many times. For instance, I was on the Board of Directors of a non-profit. When I would offer suggestions, there would be a silence. Often in the same meeting, a man would offer the same suggestion and the response would be "That's a great idea". They could not seem to "hear" the idea if it came from a woman. I observed this happening when other women spoke up as well...(less)

Community Reviews

Feminism has - and probably will always have - a special place in my heart. Overall, I don't read a lot of nonfiction, but when I do, it is often in the form of feminist essays. And I just think I may have been spoiled by better essay writers than Solnit.

Men Explain Things to Me was a natural choice for my TBR, but the writing quality is just okay, not very evocative or engaging, and the ideas are very basic. Compare this to Roxane Gay or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Bad Feminist, Hunger, We ShouldFeminism has - and probably will always have - a special place in my heart. Overall, I don't read a lot of nonfiction, but when I do, it is often in the form of feminist essays. And I just think I may have been spoiled by better essay writers than Solnit.

I think the strength of this book - and the reason it has done so well - is that it’s main concept will make sense to a lot of women. I keep seeing anecdotes from other reviewers on how men have tried to explain things to them in their lives. There is something very wonderful about someone putting into words an experience that up until this point you haven’t known how to explain. I get that.

But, unfortunately, that's where the positive ended for me. Take, for example, the title essay of "Men Explain Things to Me". The title pretty much says it all, and the essay doesn't take you into any more depth. Almost the entirety of the essay is contained within its title. The essay consists of Solnit talking about an encounter with a man who tried to explain to her something she knew more about than he did. She doesn't analyze this, or the history behind it - it is not so much an essay as it is an idea floating around without depth.

That's just the first essay, but the rest feel like Feminism 101, too. They are mostly statistics that learned feminists will have already heard of, and Solnit doesn’t give any additional insight. The book lacks intersectionality, which, you know, fine, I get writing about what you know, but then don't make absolutely ridiculous statements like this:

"violence doesn't have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender."

The author highlights her ignorance with this statement because violence has been shown repeatedly to have all of those things.

I thought for a while I could say this book was only for those who know nothing about feminism already, but reading statements like that make me think it isn't for those either.

This book is so depressing that I had to read this one at the same time to prevent me from spiralling down into despair.

You may have heard of the title essay, which is funny and deservedly famous. But in the second essay the floor suddenly drops away and we’re falling into the vile pit of misogyny. The second essay is called “The Longest war” and is about men hating, silencing, injuring and killing women.

Ah misogyny, men hating women. It’s like oil – every time you think we may be running out oThis book is so depressing that I had to read this one at the same time to prevent me from spiralling down into despair.

You may have heard of the title essay, which is funny and deservedly famous. But in the second essay the floor suddenly drops away and we’re falling into the vile pit of misogyny. The second essay is called “The Longest war” and is about men hating, silencing, injuring and killing women.

When they’re not actually raping & killing & trolling, men make movies in which men torture women to death, movies which some other men ban and others enjoy. Here's a few interesting titles (there are sooooooo many more)

Rebecca Solnit lays this all on the line in this series of essays. But - maybe by sheer will power, she manages to end on an optimistic note, which I was very grateful for. She says that at least this is all known about & made public now; and the genie of feminism can’t be put back in the bottle, and even though the road is 1000 miles long

the woman walking down it isn’t at mile one. I don’t know how far she has to go, but I know she’s not going backward, despite it all – and she’s not walking alone.

Hmmm.

Here's a little bit of good news from Britain : we have begun to jail men who threaten rape.

Nunn, 33, used social media for a series of vile statements after Ms Creasy supported a bid to put Austen on the bank note.

The campaign was launched by feminist Caroline Criado-Perez, a court heard.

She was also a target of threats from Nunn, City of London Magistrates' Court was told.

He retweeted one sickening message to the Walthamstow MP, which read: "You better watch your back, I'm going to rape you at 8pm and put the video all over."

Ms Creasy told 5 News Tonight: "I can't pretend that it hasn't had an impact on me. Of course it makes you much more wary of strangers, it makes you frightened, it makes you terrified because somebody has fixated on you and wants to cause you suffering and pain.

Nunn, from Bristol, was found guilty at an earlier hearing of sending indecent, obscene and menacing messages by a public electronic network between July 28 and August 5 last year.

Jailing him for 18 weeks today, District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe dismissed Nunn's defence that the messages were meant to be satirical.

She said: "This was extreme language with substantial threats to Ms Creasy.

I do not accept that this was free speech and jokes," she added.

Earlier the judge had remarked: "I can't see that this is anything other than grossly offensive and menacing.

"I am told that a lot of people joke about rape, I don't know if I'm sure that this is a common form of humour in any form of media."...more

I've read this essay and others by Solnit all prior to their inclusion in this slim little tone with the exactly right-sized lettering on its cover. I am hugely adoring of her writing, so this review is less about the essays themselves (all fantastic) than the fact that it is a discrete volume you can, and should, be toting around in public.

Ladies, read it on the subway.

Two nights ago I was coming home from a lovely summer's walk to a favorite bookstore, where I snapped up the book. I took it ouI've read this essay and others by Solnit all prior to their inclusion in this slim little tone with the exactly right-sized lettering on its cover. I am hugely adoring of her writing, so this review is less about the essays themselves (all fantastic) than the fact that it is a discrete volume you can, and should, be toting around in public.

Ladies, read it on the subway.

Two nights ago I was coming home from a lovely summer's walk to a favorite bookstore, where I snapped up the book. I took it out of my bag at 10:30 p.m. on a sublime Saturday night in New York, on the G train.

I was standing, but a Latina woman with her daughter on her lap craned her neck to try see the title of the book. Next to her, two other women who seemed to be out on the town for the night, were whispering to each other, "what does it say?"

The Latina woman cocked her head further and spoke up, "Men Explain Things..."

I spun on my heel and showed off the cover.

"'Men Explain Things to Me.' It's great."

"What is it about?" asked one of the women out on the town. I could tell by the tilt of her eyebrow that she thought its premise was dubious. She did not want Things Explained to her.

I scooched over to where they were sitting, and gave them a short precis of the essay's key narrative moment, closing with: "and you ladies know what she's talking about right? Has that ever happened to you?"

"Mmm-HMM." "You know it has." And a few little cheers and murmurs erupted from the half-dozen women in the train car. We all smiled. I went back to the book, and the women who were out on the town started talking about how Frankie was doing the exact same thing last week, and had no idea what he was talking about. ...more

The titular first essay is required reading for humans, especially men. I enjoyed (is that the right word?) the rest of the book as well, though I felt the essays were best when they were most direct. My only quibble with the book is that the essays weren't meant to appear together, which led to some unfortunate repetition, right down to quotes from primary sources that appear in multiple essays. Still well worth the time.

One note: The best part about reading this as a book? No comments section.The titular first essay is required reading for humans, especially men. I enjoyed (is that the right word?) the rest of the book as well, though I felt the essays were best when they were most direct. My only quibble with the book is that the essays weren't meant to appear together, which led to some unfortunate repetition, right down to quotes from primary sources that appear in multiple essays. Still well worth the time.

One note: The best part about reading this as a book? No comments section. You forget how great it is to read someone's ideas without a chorus of nutters shouting at them from the comments. ...more

not really sure why i even finished this book. probably one of the biggest and earliest red flags for me was when she said that "violence doesn't have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender." that's cool and all but as a woman of color i'm exponentially more likely to be assaulted than a white woman and part of the reason behind that is because of fetishizing — done primarily and more or less inducted into the world i live in by, you guessed it, white men.

solnitnot really sure why i even finished this book. probably one of the biggest and earliest red flags for me was when she said that "violence doesn't have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender." that's cool and all but as a woman of color i'm exponentially more likely to be assaulted than a white woman and part of the reason behind that is because of fetishizing — done primarily and more or less inducted into the world i live in by, you guessed it, white men.

solnit has good intentions, i'm sure, but she clearly has no idea how to think intersectionally. she is white, she is cis, she is probably doing ok financially, and i'm assuming she is straight. nothing wrong with any of those things, but by her writing — you can tell. she lives in a bubble. at some point she insisted that same gender couples are inherently equal, thus ignoring the realities of qpoc, trans people, et al. this line of thinking is apparent in various other anecdotes. she does a bit of "not all men" prefacing, too, which is... wholly unnecessary. but anyway.

aside from this, i just wasn't a huge fan of her writing. at least two of the essays felt vastly out of place (i'm thinking of the ones about virginia woolf and strauss-krahn specifically) and sometimes it just felt like she was making really tenuous links for the sake of... sounding poetic, i guess.

imo this would have been a lot more enjoyable if the subject matter reflected the title. you could definitely write a book on all that alone. as it is, this was very "safe" as a feminist text and didn't really challenge much, except maybe for the most privileged women of the bunch. i probably wouldn't have knocked it down all the way to 1 star if i wasn't so tired of this kind of stuff being the forefront of american feminism. but like... even then, i would have probably only given it a 2. oh well....more

This collection of essays is a relatively quick read at 130 pages. And no, it’s not just 130 pages of funny anecdotes depicting unwitting men explaining things to Solnit that she already knows. In fact, after the introductory essay, there’s no further mention of such behavior.

What follows is what I would call a crash-course in why feminism was so important in the past and also why there’s still a critical need for its existence today.

So prepare yourself before diving into this. Solnit’s knackThis collection of essays is a relatively quick read at 130 pages. And no, it’s not just 130 pages of funny anecdotes depicting unwitting men explaining things to Solnit that she already knows. In fact, after the introductory essay, there’s no further mention of such behavior.

What follows is what I would call a crash-course in why feminism was so important in the past and also why there’s still a critical need for its existence today.

So prepare yourself before diving into this. Solnit’s knack for dropping bombs is unforgiving and unrelenting. She brings up stats and facts that are going to make a lot of readers uncomfortable. Especially those who are unfamiliar with world news, are new to feminism, or somehow managed to miss just how pervasive violence against women is in nearly every world culture.

This slim collection of essays, was an effective and accurate representation of feminism and how the female gender still suffers today. It was timely and apropos, when you consider everything that is happening under the Trump administration. There were sections of this book that were dry and hard to get through, however Men Explain Things to Me is feminism lit on steroids. Rebecca Solnit gets down and dirty, climbs into the trenches, illustrating multiple inequities that women of today still sufThis slim collection of essays, was an effective and accurate representation of feminism and how the female gender still suffers today. It was timely and apropos, when you consider everything that is happening under the Trump administration. There were sections of this book that were dry and hard to get through, however Men Explain Things to Me is feminism lit on steroids. Rebecca Solnit gets down and dirty, climbs into the trenches, illustrating multiple inequities that women of today still suffer. This is one such example:

The online world is full of mostly anonymous rape and death threats for women who stick out - who, for instance, participate in online gaming or speak up on controversial issues

Solnit speaks of the great feminist battle, that at times may have seemed hopeless, but step by step, women are breaking down these barriers. Walls that at one time seemed too great of a hurtle, impossible to climb over.

Here is that road , maybe a thousand miles long, and the woman walking down it isn't at mile one. I don't know how far she has to go, but I know she's not going backward, despite it all - and she's not walking alone.

Although this isn't exciting literature, or a page-turner, it is essential reading material for both men and women alike. It addresses issues of extreme importance and is executed with grace and adroitness. Rebecca Solnit is a powerhouse.

Additional Note: I wasn't going to add a GIF to this.. however.. this one seemed super appropriate. Don't be mad!...more

"Men explain things to me, and other women, whether or not they know what they're talking about. Some men."

Men explain things to me all the time, whether it be in person, online, in classroom, on dates, and at work. And my female friends tell me the same thing. Of course I have often been left wondering what it is about me that make these particular men believe I know nothing about the subject? It can't just be my gender,surely? It often is but often their actions are often racialized. This book"Men explain things to me, and other women, whether or not they know what they're talking about. Some men."

Men explain things to me all the time, whether it be in person, online, in classroom, on dates, and at work. And my female friends tell me the same thing. Of course I have often been left wondering what it is about me that make these particular men believe I know nothing about the subject? It can't just be my gender,surely? It often is but often their actions are often racialized. This book focuses on gendered assumptions of a woman being seen as “some sort of obscene impregnation metaphor, an empty vessel to be filled with their wisdom and knowledge."

My thoughts for the majority of this review come from the titular essay, “Men Explain Things to Me.” Despite the fact that she's an accomplished writer, Solnit experiences “mansplaining” though she doesn’t use that term herself. What was surprising to me was how the essay started off in a light and slightly humorous tone but soon got quite dark, clearly showing us the consequences of silencing women, and those consequences are dire.

There was a lot of depressing data on rape and domestic violence figures. Solnit acknowledges male feminists and men who actually listen to women’s experiences, and she also questions the image of masculinity in society. It reminded me a bit of Anais Nin’s thoughts in her essay “In Favour of the Sensitive Man”:

"What's the matter with manhood? There's something about how masculinity is imagined, about what's praised and encouraged, about the way violence is passed on to boys that needs to be addressed."

After reading all the depressing numbers I can’t help but wonder why there hasn’t been more to address the violence facing women. In fact, it’s quite shocking that this isn’t a priority (especially not for some politicians, as Solnit points out some awful examples of rape culture perpetuated by Republican politicians). But this is not only an American problem, it's pretty much a global issue. As Solnit points out, why hasn't there been a war declared on rape and domestic violence? It is a pandemic although the media prefers to call these incidences isolated incidents.

There are other essays in the collection that are just as good and as informative as the titular one, with Solnit's poetic touch that didn't come through as strongly in this collection as it did in one of my favourites,The Faraway Nearby. One I especially liked was “Worlds Collide in a Luxury Suite,” which was about the IMF and Dominique Strauss-Kahn. In this essay she showed the relationship between power and exploitation, and one can say domestic violence and sexual assault follows a similar pattern:

"Her name was Africa. His name was France. He colonized her, exploited her, silenced her, and even decades after it was supposed to have ended, still acted with a high hand in resolving her affairs in places like Côte d'Ivoire, a name she had been given because of her export products, not her own identity."

I could go on and on about the above paragraph; it’s stated so succinctly but there are so many layers to it.

It ... didn't go where I thought it would. It starts out strong, she ends on a decent note, but it meanders in the middle in a way that makes me wish it hadn't been a book at all. It's good writing, and the points she makes are important, but overall it was just a little, I don't know, unfocused? Lackluster? Something about the third quarter, all that Woolf/Sontag musing, that lost totally lost my interest. I was hoping for more connection, something sharper.

"Having the right to show up and speak are basic to survival, to dignity, and to liberty."

Well, this is a really interesting analyze of these "little nothings" that imprisons women in straightjackets, unfortunately leaving the way open for physical or mental violence. You may not want to see it, but it's here, it does happen, and vigilance is mandatory in my opinion. As I sometimes ask my friends, what kind of world do you want to live in? Is it okay to let people act that way, to agree tacitl

"Having the right to show up and speak are basic to survival, to dignity, and to liberty."

Well, this is a really interesting analyze of these "little nothings" that imprisons women in straightjackets, unfortunately leaving the way open for physical or mental violence. You may not want to see it, but it's here, it does happen, and vigilance is mandatory in my opinion. As I sometimes ask my friends, what kind of world do you want to live in? Is it okay to let people act that way, to agree tacitly with such behavior? Is " it has always been likewise" an excuse to reckon with? Hell no.

▒ Time for a little anecdote ▒

A few weeks ago, we read in class a short tale about equality between boys and girls and we debated on the subject just after. You can imagine my shock when I realized that some of the boys thought that girls weren't able to succeed in what they called technical jobs. Yes, because they genuinely thought that the ability to understand technical facts and other equations were embedded in their gender.

Do you want to know what bothered me the most? The fact that none of the girls openly disagreed with that statement, even though some of them aren't usually afraid to say their part. I was appalled.

They are ten.

The patronizing behavior of some men? I think most women live it every day, and what maddens me is the fact that I'm often told that's it's NORMAL, both by men and women.

Men explain things to me, still. I teach to ten years old so of course my personal knowledge isn't really above primary school, you know. Never mind that I followed a 5 years curse in college. That's not important. I'm supposed to be sweet, kind, and most important, mute.

No, sorry but not sorry to disagree with this and I never, ever want somebody telling me what to think and what I AM. Note that what I think about women is, in my opinion, as important for men, who are also the victims of these gender stereotypes.

Men explain things to me, but not all men. Of course. I'm feeling silly to feel the need to point this, because it's obvious^^

However, I remain unsatisfied because I wanted more from this book, but if I'm being fair, it's only a compilation of short essays and as it is I can't really ask it to be a full book. In the end, my opinion is positive because if this book - or even the short first essay - can give people the need to read more about these issues, that's already something great.

01/29 : Just a little heads-up to say that this year, my class reacted in the OPPOSITE way, and fuck, I was so proud of them ♥

Oh, before I forget! For French speakers, I watched recently a very interesting documentary about the way women are treated in politics in France (Macho Politico, by Cyrille Eldin). Both interesting and appalling...

To say that I was under a misapprehension about this book is an understatement. A friend mentioned how amusing the title essay was, and I assumed the whole book was like that — funny stories about tDo not be fooled by the cutesy title — this is a dark and serious book.

To say that I was under a misapprehension about this book is an understatement. A friend mentioned how amusing the title essay was, and I assumed the whole book was like that — funny stories about things overbearing men have said to the author. But that's just Solnit's hook to get you reading. Her essays are clarion calls to stop violence against women.

"We have far more than 87,000 rapes in this country every year, but each of them is invariably portrayed as an isolated incident. We have dots so close they're splatters melting into a stain, but hardly anyone connects them, or names that stain. In India they did. They said that this is a civil rights issue, it's a human rights issue, it's everyone's problem, it's not isolated, and it's never going to be acceptable again. It has to change. It's your job to change it, and mine, and ours."

This short book (about 130 pages) is a good primer for those interested in reading about gender inequality. Some of the essays are tied to specific current events, such as the sexual assault case involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn, or the gang rape of an unconscious teenager by members of the Steubenville High School football team. Solnit uses a lot of research, statistics and examples in her essays to make the point that there are so many incidents of sexual assault and so many cases of women who have been abused that there needs to be a conversation about what it means to be a man.

"What's the matter with manhood? There's something about how masculinity is imagined, about what's praised and encouraged, about the way violence is passed on to boys that needs to be addressed."

Some of the essays are a little scattered, but it is still a thoughtful book and I would recommend it. I hope it leads to more reading on the topic (and more social progress).

UpdateI mention this in the comments, but it bears repeating. I would not describe this book as anti-men. Solnit repeatedly praises the increasing number of men who consider themselves feminists and who are working toward improving women's rights. The underlying theme is more about the patriarchal society we have, and how women still have to fight to be heard.

Favorite Quote"Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being. Things have gotten better, but this war won't end in my lifetime. I'm still fighting it, for myself certainly, but also for all those younger women who have something to say, in the hope that they will get to say it."...more

Solnit's popular essay that was floating around the internet for a while was important enough for me to remember some years later when this book of the same name came out. I was hoping that this 124 page volume would be full of embarrassing stories of feet in the mouths of men. I bought this on a day of several of these interactions, hoping it would be an ally and coping mechanism. It starts off with that essay, but then goes into talking about the ways in which women are victims of sexism by waSolnit's popular essay that was floating around the internet for a while was important enough for me to remember some years later when this book of the same name came out. I was hoping that this 124 page volume would be full of embarrassing stories of feet in the mouths of men. I bought this on a day of several of these interactions, hoping it would be an ally and coping mechanism. It starts off with that essay, but then goes into talking about the ways in which women are victims of sexism by way of rape, domestic abuse, etc. A veteran feminist, I wouldn't be likely to pick up a book trying to convince me of this sort of thing, but it is nice to have a collection of more recent events. Still, there were may too many "not all men" excuses and she reveres gay/lesbian couples as egalitarian without gender roles (has Solnit, like, ever met a lesbian couple?) A lot of the ideas are basic, her feminism does not seem to explore intersectionality much and this book ends on some weird esoteric note with a long essay about Woolf and Sontag (why? Because they are women who do not need Things Explained to them? I didn't get this). The title is a misnomer, would recommend to the modern idiot under a rock who thinks feminism is unnecessary in this day and age, but not to anyone worth their salt....more

Update after re-read: this was one the first books on feminism I read.

It felt good to reread it! I definitely picked up on more things she was writing about out this time. At the same time, though, I had this feeling while reading some of her essays that she was the stereotypical white feminist that doesn't completely acknowledge other issues feminists of color, or trans women, might have. I think feminism evolved a bit since these essays were written.

I didn't know this book was a collection of essays when I first sat down with it. I thought it was an expansion on the title essay. I would have enjoyed this book more if I'd known what to expect, so in case you didn't know, either: this book is a collection of feminist essays.

Some of the writing here makes for some pretty brutal reading. Much of it had me jumping up and down, shouting, "YES! FINALLY, SOMEONE ELSE IS SAYING THIS! IT'S NOT JUST ME! THIS IS TRUE!"

Passages like this one:

It's not tI didn't know this book was a collection of essays when I first sat down with it. I thought it was an expansion on the title essay. I would have enjoyed this book more if I'd known what to expect, so in case you didn't know, either: this book is a collection of feminist essays.

Some of the writing here makes for some pretty brutal reading. Much of it had me jumping up and down, shouting, "YES! FINALLY, SOMEONE ELSE IS SAYING THIS! IT'S NOT JUST ME! THIS IS TRUE!"

Passages like this one:

It's not that I want to pick on men. I just think that if we noticed that women are, on the whole, radically less violent, we might be able to theorize where violence comes from and what we can do about it a lot more productively. Clearly the ready availability of guns is a huge problem for the United States, but despite this availability to everyone, murder is still a crime committed by men 90 percent of the time.

And this one:

No female bus riders in India have ganged up to sexually assault a man so badly he dies of his injuries, nor are marauding packs of women terrorizing men in Cairo's Tahrir Square, and there's just no maternal equivalent of the 11 percent of rapes that are by fathers or stepfathers. Of the people in prison in the United States, 93.5 percent are not women, and though quite a lot of the prisoners should not be there in the first place, maybe some of them should because of violence, until we think of a better way to deal with it, and them.

And so many more. I could quote this book all day. (Ask my friends.)

Solnit points out, correctly, that South Africa is the rape capital of the world. I already knew this, and have been known to point out (again, check with my immediate circle) that we all cared a lot about the horrible things going on in South Africa when those horrible things were racist. Now that it's women who are being brutally mistreated – gosh, look at the time. And anyway, that's not the same thing as apartheid, is it? It's not the government raping women. So, you know.

Excuse me while I punch a wall.

Solnit's chapter "Who has the right to kill you?" has never been more timely. It addresses the idea some men have that they have a right to control women's behavior, and to mete out punishment for "misbehavior." (Misbehavior being behavior such men don't approve of, such as women not basing their actions on what such men want.)

A few days ago, I was listening to a news report about one of the rapists who's facing the death penalty for his murderous assault on a medical student in New Delhi. This rapist was interviewed about his crime, and I was expecting to hear him sound utterly cowed, utterly chastened. He was facing possible execution, after all, for a crime that had prompted outrage around the world. I expected this to be hard to listen to, because I rarely enjoy hearing people cringe no matter how hard they've worked to earn the privilege of doing so.

Instead, he doubled down. He had the right, he said, to teach a lesson to a girl who was out late with a boy she wasn't married or related to. And anyway, he wouldn't have hurt her so much if she hadn't fought back.

Well, I was right about it being hard to listen to.

I want to point out one small fault in this book, because it's a misuse of statistics I've run into before and it drives me nuts and I need it to stop. We can do better, and when it comes to a cause as important and beleaguered as feminism, we need to do the best work possible.

Here's a passage from Men Explain Things to Me that didn't have the intended effect on me:

About three women a day are murdered by spouses or ex-spouses in this country. It's one of the main causes of death for pregnant women in the United States.

The first sentence made me blindingly furious. I wanted to run outside and do something. Shout from the rooftops. Donate to my local shelter. Something. Anything.

The second sentence made me think, "That's true – we've really made a lot of medical advances. Women aren't dying in childbirth, or from pre-eclampsia, or from the side effects of hyperemesis gravidarum, nearly as often as we used to. And that's not what you meant, is it?"

I know I sound like a heartless jerk, but I can't STAND it when people use what I call the Popularity Contest of Doom to make a point that makes itself without any help.

I remember hearing something on the radio years ago about suicide among the very young. Really, you barely need statistics at all if you're going to agitate against that. If one single solitary child is taking her own life, that's one child too many. Take my wallet. Take my chocolate. Do whatever you need to, but make it stop.

This report or ad or whatever it was couldn't stop there. Instead, a woman's voice intoned, "Suicide is the leading cause of death among children aged 9 to 14 in this country."

And I'm sorry, but yes – as a rigorous critical thinker, my first thought was, "Well, YEAH. We've hit the medical causes so hard that suicide has had the chance to catch up."

Solnit said something about how "this is the number one cause of death for women" a few times in this book, and it drove me quietly out of my mind every time. Because what does that mean? Why phrase it that way? If the leading cause of death among pregnant women in America is murder, and then German measles makes a horrific comeback and pregnant women start dying more of that even though the murder statistics didn't change any, are you saying I shouldn't worry anymore about pregnant women being murdered by their spouses and ex-spouses because who cares about the second-place winner in this race from hell?

If you don't mean that, why bring it up at all?

If you have meaningful figures and statistics, give me those. If three American women a day really are murdered by spouses or exes, that's what I care about. That's enough. More than enough. I don't care who else wanted to be queen of the evil prom.

This is a tiny quibble about a book that turned me into the reader everyone dreads – the one who looks up from her page and says, "Let me just tell you this one part" and then makes you late for work by reading aloud for ten minutes straight, pausing only long enough to say, "Isn't that amazing?" before starting in on yet another part that you really have to hear.

When I bought "Men Explain Things to Me," I thought I would be learning about men's thoughts on gender roles/issues. Wrong. The title refers to how men have a confrontational confidence that no matter what the subject they are right. Solnit explains how this has silenced many young women in the same way as being harassed on the street. I found myself thinking of a male friend of mine. We've had many discussions, as he is Republican, and I, Democrat. There were so many times when he would "explaiWhen I bought "Men Explain Things to Me," I thought I would be learning about men's thoughts on gender roles/issues. Wrong. The title refers to how men have a confrontational confidence that no matter what the subject they are right. Solnit explains how this has silenced many young women in the same way as being harassed on the street. I found myself thinking of a male friend of mine. We've had many discussions, as he is Republican, and I, Democrat. There were so many times when he would "explain things to me," and I would feel intimidated. He was so sure, I was so sure, but it was me who felt this intimidation, questioning myself. And, as Solnit goes on to say, "no man has ever apologized for explaining, wrongly, things that I know and they don't." I also, have never received an apology. Honestly, some of these conversations with my male friend felt violent, and as Solnit also explains, violence is used to control women. This is really a gender issue, and what is it that causes males to become so violent.

I will just list a few of the facts Solnit discusses: A woman is beaten every 9 seconds. Women worldwide ages 15 - 44 are more likely to die or be maimed because of male violence than because of cancer, malaria, war, and traffic accidents COMBINED. Three women a day are murdered by spouses or ex-spouses. It is the main cause of death for pregnant women in the U.S. In the U.S. a rape is reported every 6.2 minutes, unreported, the estimate is 5 times as high. In most Middle Eastern countries a woman has no legal standing whatsoever. Enough huh?

The good news is that more and more men are "getting it." Many think it is their issue too and are standing up for us, and with us. Amen brother!

I think Solnit should have ended there, with hope. Instead she continues with the writings of Virginia Wolff, Susan Sontag, and mentions many of her own previous books. Huh?

What a mixed bag. The title essay works best for me because it actually discusses the author's personal experiences with getting talked over by men although she obviously knows a great deal more than them about things. The Woolf/Sontag essay is interesting too.

Everything else reads like an intro feminism pamphlet with a focus on rape and DV, but with poorly done intersectionality, especially around race and colonialism. The more she talks about global issues with a sweeping brush, the more uncoWhat a mixed bag. The title essay works best for me because it actually discusses the author's personal experiences with getting talked over by men although she obviously knows a great deal more than them about things. The Woolf/Sontag essay is interesting too.

Everything else reads like an intro feminism pamphlet with a focus on rape and DV, but with poorly done intersectionality, especially around race and colonialism. The more she talks about global issues with a sweeping brush, the more uncomfortable I felt. My greatest wince was this part as she's looking a photograph of an Afghani family: "I realized with astonishment that what I had taken for drapery or furniture was a fully veiled woman... Whatever all the arguments may be about veils and burkas, they make people literally disappear."

Like, WTF is that?! If you have such unfamiliarity with Afghani/Muslim culture that you initially mistake a woman for a piece of furniture, maybe don't assume you can make a judgement about the visual significance of their women's clothing to the point that you call your opinions "literal." A good question to ask yourself: "Is this piece of clothing the Invisibility Cloak from Harry Potter?" If the answer is no, then the clothes don't not make women "literally disappear." That's just your ignorance talking!

It's clear that this book was only meant to scratch the surface, as evidenced by the inset quotes from the book that all but scream "I assume you're skimming this!" So a fair bit of strategic essentialization was inevitable, and there's a place for that in short essay writing of this style. But in these essays - of which four out of seven contain horrifying accounts of individual rapes and murders followed by shapeless metaphors about progress and hope - foreign countries are basically only cited as places of horror and oppression, while the lighter moments of the book (like the Woolf essay or a short piece on marriage equality) are all situated in white American thought and activism.

And when she does take on colonization, it's so heavy handed it hurts. "Her name was Africa. His was France, He colonized her, exploited her, silenced her" she writes about Dominique Strauss-Kahn's rape of Nafissatou Dialo. Like, why does he get the specificity of representing his country (despite being the head of the IMF) while she's expected to represent a whole continent? Nitpicky, I know, but if you're a white lady writing about international feminism, you gotta get your shit together on this stuff. Don't represent brown countries as only places of pain, and don't make women of color part of your convenient narrative at the cost of their visibility or individuality....more

The first two essays in this book started out sooo strong. I was really enjoying it up until the middle, because then it got into some essays that went off on a tangent about politics and the justice system, which wouldn't be horrible if tied back to feminism, but the language became so dense that it lost my attention. Solnit is great at researching her pieces and matching her words with experience and personal stories, but a lot of times she would be ranting about things that happened in 2003 aThe first two essays in this book started out sooo strong. I was really enjoying it up until the middle, because then it got into some essays that went off on a tangent about politics and the justice system, which wouldn't be horrible if tied back to feminism, but the language became so dense that it lost my attention. Solnit is great at researching her pieces and matching her words with experience and personal stories, but a lot of times she would be ranting about things that happened in 2003 and I just couldn't relate.

I thought the essays were eloquent, but I also understand the concerns that some people have about this book being non-intersectional, since it discusses the fact that women are more likely to be victims of violence than men, but fails to include the hierarchy within that statistic that explains the differences in white women vs. women of color being victims of hate crimes and domestic violence.

Overall I wouldn't really recommend this as a feminist read, but I will keep it on my shelf because it did have some nice quotes that made me think, such as a woman's power comes hand-in-hand with her credibility, which I never really thought about before. It was fascinating and infuriating....more

Not a funny collection of mansplaining, but a serious look at why feminism is still important in today's society.

Women's liberation has often been portrayed as a movement intent on encroaching upon or taking power and privilege away from men, as though in some dismal zero-sum game, only one gender at a time could be free and powerful. But, we are free together or slaves together.

I recently discussed third-wave feminism with someone who was trying to argue that it was an unnecessary and redundant movement. I basically said, "It's not all about Tumblr. This is the last bastion of feminism. Women are still under-represented in STEM, are still hyper-sexualized, are still blamed for their own rapes, are still told that their own bodies legally shouldn't be under their own control, are still treated like they don't haveInstagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest

I recently discussed third-wave feminism with someone who was trying to argue that it was an unnecessary and redundant movement. I basically said, "It's not all about Tumblr. This is the last bastion of feminism. Women are still under-represented in STEM, are still hyper-sexualized, are still blamed for their own rapes, are still told that their own bodies legally shouldn't be under their own control, are still treated like they don't have the faintest idea of what they're talking about solely because they are women." I know many critics of feminism like to say that "feminism" itself is a sexist name and should be called equalism. You know what the problem with that is? It nulls out the group that the movement is supposed to be calling attention to and makes it far too easy to say, "Why are you focusing on women's issues? We're supposed to be equal. Let's focus on things that benefit both genders" and shut down crucial dialogues about many unequal aspects plaguing society.

I bought this book because it went on sale recently and I loved the title, MEN EXPLAIN THINGS TO ME. That's a title that grabs attention and stirs up controversy before you even crack open the cover. Speaking as a woman on the internet, I've had men explain things to me more times than I can count. It's called mansplaining, and while there are different terms for this phenomenon, depending on who is doing it to whom, the most common dynamic I've seen is man reexplaining point to woman. Given the title, I thought this was going to be a humorous series of anecdotes. Basically Mainsplain: The Book. I could not have been more wrong.

The first essay lived up to my expectations, in which the author herself describes an incident in which a (male) acquaintance begins explaining her own book to her, not knowing that she wrote it. From there, however, MEN EXPLAIN THINGS TO ME takes a serious nosedive, discussing the many other ways women are "silenced," particularly with regard to rape and victim-blaming. An important topic, but none that doesn't really relate back to the title or the expectations set by the Goodreads blurb, and one that was handled far better in Jody Raphael's RAPE IS RAPE.

There are some great points made in here, but she also frequently resorts to hyperbole, which does not really help with her arguments. She also meanders from topic to topic, with some of them, like a rant about how awesome Virginia Woolf is, seemingly out of place. I don't like Virginia Woolf, so this essay did not impress me. It's a shame. I was hoping to like it much more than I did.

Men Explain Things to Me is a collection of essays about the experiences of women in America. There are nine essays in this collection, with the first giving this book its name. I cannot write about this book without saying that even though none of the concepts, sentiments or facts are new to me, I still found myself getting emotional while reading. I was reminded of a number of my experiences over the years, from my childhood onwards, that made this a slow and, at times, difficult read. Note: TMen Explain Things to Me is a collection of essays about the experiences of women in America. There are nine essays in this collection, with the first giving this book its name. I cannot write about this book without saying that even though none of the concepts, sentiments or facts are new to me, I still found myself getting emotional while reading. I was reminded of a number of my experiences over the years, from my childhood onwards, that made this a slow and, at times, difficult read. Note: The complications of being a woman of colour are not addressed in detail as that is not the author's experience.

The essays:

-Men Explain Things to Me: This is altogether too familiar an experience. No matter how well-read, how educated, how accomplished you are, there is always some ninny who believes that because you have girl parts that you can't possibly know anything, and that you must listen, ad nauseum, to this guy tell you how incredibly, overwhelmingly smart he is about something he knows nothing about. That subject incidentally, is in an area you've spent over 10 years studying and working in. But you know, girl parts.

-The Longest War: Oh yes, the rape essay. The essay that had my shaking with anger and fear, reliving personal experiences with former boyfriends. Though the stats listed in the essay were specific to the U.S., this is a sickening recitation of the realities of being female.

-Worlds Collide in a Luxury Suite: Some Thoughts on the IMF, Global Injustice, and a Stranger on a Train: How people in power, usually men, get to get away with foul behaviour, and how, ever so slowly, this is changing.

-In Praise of the Threat: What Marriage Equality Really Means: My early experience with marriage, my parents', didn't appear to be one between equals. In fact, none of the ones I saw growing up were pleasant to look at. I saw many examples of power imbalances, abuse, neglect, and lack of respect. This became the "traditional" definition of marriage to me. The author discusses how people are redefining what marriage can be and how this is terrifying for those who want us all to be traditional.

-Grandmother Spider: The erasure of women over the years, using examples of genealogy, of women's last names, and women's legal standing (we've only recently, historically speaking, become people to the legal system) over the years.

-Woolf's Darkness: Embracing the Inexplicable: This one's about the uncertainty of the future.

-Cassandra Among the Creeps: Another essay about women not being taken seriously, and how they are often described as hysterical when making points that differ from a conventional belief. Rape returns to this essay.

-#YesAllWomen Feminists Rewrite the Story: When a women says something contradictory, or no, some men feel it's okay to do any or all of the following: call her names, threaten to assault her, assault her, kill her. This essay discussed the power of #YesAllWomen.

-Pandora's Box and the Volunteer Police Force: The essay about the 'one step forward, four steps back' efforts for women to be treated as people in the U.S.

There was some repetition in the essays, as they were written across several years in response to various incidents. The essays reminded me yet again that humans have far to go for both halves of the species to be valued. But I have hope that eventually that will happen....more

Everyone on Book Riot has been saying how amazing this book is and I am finally getting around to reading it. Amazing doesn’t cover it. Thought provoking, sure. Rage inducing, definitely. Necessary reading, absolutely.

Men Explain Things to Me, more baldly stated, could be Men Belittle Me. This is a book about sexism; however--and this is a crucial point--despite that provocative title, it’s not a misandrist book. Solnit stresses the idea a few times throughout, starting on page two:

Here, let me just say that my life is well sprinkled with lovely men, with a long succession of editors who have, since I was young, listened to and encouraged and published me, with my infinitely generous younger

***NO SPOILERS***

Men Explain Things to Me, more baldly stated, could be Men Belittle Me. This is a book about sexism; however--and this is a crucial point--despite that provocative title, it’s not a misandrist book. Solnit stresses the idea a few times throughout, starting on page two:

Here, let me just say that my life is well sprinkled with lovely men, with a long succession of editors who have, since I was young, listened to and encouraged and published me, with my infinitely generous younger brother, with splendid friends of whom it could be said--like the Clerk in The Canterbury Tales I still remember from Mr. Pelen’s class on Chaucer--"gladly would he learn and gladly teach."

Solnit is prominent and respected as a feminist writer, and Men Explain Things to Me is a compilation of her essays, some previously published elsewhere, exploring various feminist issues. The book is a highly intelligent and serious work. (The “hilarious” descriptor in the summary is entirely inaccurate.) One of her most enjoyable essays is the one she opens with (the titular essay). This is an anecdote that underscores well men’s too-frequent condescending behavior toward women.

Not all the essays hang well together; some are more germane and more engrossing. An essay on Virginia Woolf doesn’t connect with the others; on the other hand, an essay on the power of language to describe and reshape feminism is solid. Solnit did her research--statistics are plentiful--and beyond that, she’s a cerebral woman, a critical thinker who’s clearly spent time pondering sexism on a deep level.

With that said, the book feels incomplete because she never examined the unequal treatment of men and women (in the workplace and media, the “pink tax,” and so on); their day-to-day life experiences; why sexism even still exists in 2017. Also, the most glaring unexplored point: why do men “explain” to women? Instead, her essays veer a tad into the abstract, while her writing is wordy and convoluted at times. The first essay is the strongest because it’s the most concrete, opening as it does with a personal story involving her and a female friend talking with a man at a party. The site everydaysexism, for instance, isn’t complex, but it’s compelling because of its “realness.” Men Explain Things to Me needed more of that.

Solnit definitely is an expert in her topic, though, presenting a logical perspective that’s fresh and enlightening. Additionally, as a bonus, despite being packed with information, Men Explain Things to Me reads fast. Most of all, it’s important--for women and men alike....more

I need some time to absorb this before I can write a quality review, but reading Men Explain Things To Me filled me with nauseating recognition, righteous, helpless anger, and yes, that last djinni in the bottle, hope.

I'm really struggling to channel my outrage over the kidnapped girls in northern Nigeria and the world's continued apathy over the subjugation of women and girls everywhere. In reading METTM and reliving all the stupid, maddening ways I've been condescended to, all the times I'veI need some time to absorb this before I can write a quality review, but reading Men Explain Things To Me filled me with nauseating recognition, righteous, helpless anger, and yes, that last djinni in the bottle, hope.

I'm really struggling to channel my outrage over the kidnapped girls in northern Nigeria and the world's continued apathy over the subjugation of women and girls everywhere. In reading METTM and reliving all the stupid, maddening ways I've been condescended to, all the times I've felt my safety comprised by a man, and comparing this to the terror women live in daily, I just don't know where to go. Rebecca Solnit does not offer the answers, but she makes a very cogent case why feminism is a struggle for human rights, why it should matter to us all.

It's also a beautiful thing that I read this after I read my first Virginia Woolf, a few weeks ago. Solnit makes me hunger to read more Woolf. I'm also ready to read more Rebecca Solnit....more

Chords, nerves: the thing is still circulating as I write. The point of the essay was never to suggest that I think I am notably oppressed. It was to take these conversations as the narrow end of the wedge that opens up space for men and closes it off for women, space to speak, to be heard, to have rights, to participate, to be respected, to be a full and free human being.

If you come across an ignorant person who pretends that sexism does not exist or that feminism has no merits, please direct tChords, nerves: the thing is still circulating as I write. The point of the essay was never to suggest that I think I am notably oppressed. It was to take these conversations as the narrow end of the wedge that opens up space for men and closes it off for women, space to speak, to be heard, to have rights, to participate, to be respected, to be a full and free human being.

If you come across an ignorant person who pretends that sexism does not exist or that feminism has no merits, please direct them to this book. In her collection of essays Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit articulates the problems that arise within the discourse of men and women. She uses brutal, saddening statistics to cement her arguments, but she always composes herself enough so that a wide range of readers will still appreciate her writing. This passage showcases her even-handedness:

Though virtually all the perpetrators of such crimes are men, that doesn't mean all men are violent. Most are not. In addition, men obviously also suffer violence, largely at the hands of other men, and every violent death, every assault is terrible. Women can and do engage in intimate partner violence, but recent studies state that these acts don't often result in significant injury, let alone death; on the other hand, men murdered by their partners are often killed in self-defense, and intimate violence sends a lot of women to the hospital and the grave. But the subject here is the pandemic of violence by men against women, both intimate violence and stranger violence.

This collection of essays does suffer just a little bit from a lack of a unifying theme; Solnit wrote these pieces as individual arguments, so her effort to join them feels disjointed at times. However, she compensates for this slight scramble by writing about a wide variety of topics and how they relate to the conversations between men and women. She analyzes the effects of marriage equality on the patriarchal standards within heterosexual marriages, she pays homage to Virginia Woolf by commenting on her essays, and much more. Solnit's fire for feminism and equality simmers through the pages of this collection, and several individual passages burn as exemplars of original, meaningful thought. Recommended for everyone interested or disinterested in feminism, as this would make a nice companion to Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist. I will end my review with a final paragraph that stuck out to me:

We have more than eighty-seven thousand rapes in this country every year, but each of them is invariably portrayed as an isolated incident. We have dots so close they're splatters melting into a stain, but hardly anyone connects them, or names that stain. In India they did. They said that this is a civil rights issue, it's a human rights issue, it's everyone problem, it's not isolated, and it's never going to be acceptable again. it has to change. It's your job to change it, and mine, and ours....more

I liked the title of this and truthfully I thought it would be Solnit relating or interpreting the difference in how men and women approach an issue, a problem, a situation. I can always use that, tone-deaf as I tend to be, as I have taught myself to be. I am curious about how men think, but that is all. I don't weight it differently...or at least I hope I don't weight it less than my own view.

This short book of essays or blogposts is rather thoughts from a female point of view which I am alreaI liked the title of this and truthfully I thought it would be Solnit relating or interpreting the difference in how men and women approach an issue, a problem, a situation. I can always use that, tone-deaf as I tend to be, as I have taught myself to be. I am curious about how men think, but that is all. I don't weight it differently...or at least I hope I don't weight it less than my own view.

This short book of essays or blogposts is rather thoughts from a female point of view which I am already most familiar with, and I applaud Solnit for clarity and wit, and in the later essays, a certain depth of understanding. In the first, eponymous essay Solnit tells us of something all of us (those of any race, creed or sex) may have experienced before when someone to whom we are speaking underestimates (or misunderestimates, as George W. would say) their conversational partner, raving on about something about which they know only a little and about which we may know quite a lot. It sometimes happens to women in the company of men, but it also happens to men which is perhaps why this essay feels so pertinent and fresh to all that encounter it.

Solnit's other essays on how women function, or do not function, in the world are well-argued and instructive, and her extension from that to other injustices we create in our world, i.e., wage inequities, the fear of damage from nuclear reactors or weapons, inequitable marriage laws, make a certain sense. I especially liked her look at the case of the IMF's Dominique Strauss-Kahn since I haven't heard anyone else's take on that since it happened. What a ridiculous example that was of overweening self-regard and lack of fear of prosecution. He didn't, in the end, get away with it but it was a close-run thing.

As sometimes happens in the nature of things, this book came to me at the same time I was introduced to some thinking by Hannah Arendt as a result of the 2013 Margarethe von Trotta film in her name. Arendt is a writer of such depth, eloquence, and profundity that Solnit comes off as fledgling. But I think Arendt would say Solnit is on the right track, and would celebrate and encourage, and perhaps even use her ideas, as Solnit says Sontag did, as the starting point for deep discussion.

She mentions the website TomDispatch.com for giving several of her essays wide circulation. Looking at that site it looks like a hotbed of political dissent and discussion, and a useful spur to creative disagreement. ...more

What an inspirational book! Rebecca Solnit writes brilliantly about mansplaining — although she doesn’t like that term — but the true value of this slim volume of essays comes with the way she connects the dots: mansplaining, rapes, las madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, the lauding of a rose-colored “traditional marriage,” and domestic violence all emerge from a belief that women aren’t full citizens, worthy of respect, of the right to speak, of the right to her own opinions, of the rightWhat an inspirational book! Rebecca Solnit writes brilliantly about mansplaining — although she doesn’t like that term — but the true value of this slim volume of essays comes with the way she connects the dots: mansplaining, rapes, las madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, the lauding of a rose-colored “traditional marriage,” and domestic violence all emerge from a belief that women aren’t full citizens, worthy of respect, of the right to speak, of the right to her own opinions, of the right to say no, of the right to her own decisions. Handling these issues separately serves only to obscure the issues of power and privilege at play.

Solnit didn’t coin the term “manplain”; however, her 2008 essay on TomDispatch.com on the phenomenon of men with only a cursory knowledge of a subject lecturing female experts predated the origin of the term, and Solnit has had a lot to do with alerting women to this ubiquitous form of patronization, “these conversations as the narrow end of the wedge that opens up space for men and closes it off for women: space to speak, to be heard, to have rights, to participate, to be respected, to be a full and free human being.”

As she writes:

Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.

…The battle with Men Who Explain Things has trampled down many women — of my generation, of the up-and-coming generation we need so badly, here and in Pakistan and Bolivia and Java, not to speak of the countless women who came before me and were not allowed into the laboratory, or the library, or the conversation, or the revolution, or even the category called human.

Too often women blame themselves, doubting what they know that they know in the face of an ignoramus’ steadfast certainty — just as women’s socialization to be good and quiet and polite could leave them at a disadvantage when dealing with violent men. The arrogance of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn or the Indian bus rapists and that of the mansplainer who begins Solnit’s collections of essays differ only in degree, not kind. Solnit’s book proves so excellent that it made me wish I’d read it sooner. I’m recommending it for my husband and my son and my daughter — and all my GoodReads friends....more

So very good. I suggest that you read this if you have time. It's fantastic and there are so many stats that will make your head swim. To be a woman in the world means you are intrinsically in danger. Most of that danger comes from men and even from well-meaning men who just can't help "explaining" things to women.

It's hard to be at work in the position that I'm in it having to report to men who don't know as much as me about a subject, but often feel the need to tell me that something that I toSo very good. I suggest that you read this if you have time. It's fantastic and there are so many stats that will make your head swim. To be a woman in the world means you are intrinsically in danger. Most of that danger comes from men and even from well-meaning men who just can't help "explaining" things to women.

It's hard to be at work in the position that I'm in it having to report to men who don't know as much as me about a subject, but often feel the need to tell me that something that I told them was totally not working in the way that it should be. And all cases it has been shown I was still right, they were still wrong, they just took very shity directions. I swear 90% of my job is now just responding to complaints about things that would be resolved if people would slow down and actually listen to me the first time when I spoke to them.

Solnit does a great job of breaking this up and focusing on key things surrounding violence against women, rape, rape culture, sexual harassment, and even why conservatives seem to have it out for women issues.

"Every woman knows what I’m talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence."

"About three women a day are murdered by spouses or ex-spouses in this country. It’s one of the main causes of death for pregnant women in the United States. At the heart of the struggle of feminism to give rape, date rape, marital rape, domestic violence, and workplace sexual harassment legal standing as crimes has been the necessity of making women credible and audible."

"Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being."

Rape culture is now the topic of the day due to the me too movement, Women's March initiatives, and Hollywood's Time's Up cause. One hopes that these are not just flash in the pan social media blitzes and that there are going to be more thought and discussion on how to include all women as well as women in every industry....more

Rebecca Solnit is an American author who often writes on the environment, politics, place, and art. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications in print and online, including the Guardian newspaper and Harper's Magazine, where she is the first woman to regularly write the Easy Chair column founded in 1851. She is also a regular contributor to the political blog TomDispatch and to LitHub.

SolnRebecca Solnit is an American author who often writes on the environment, politics, place, and art. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications in print and online, including the Guardian newspaper and Harper's Magazine, where she is the first woman to regularly write the Easy Chair column founded in 1851. She is also a regular contributor to the political blog TomDispatch and to LitHub.

Solnit has received two NEA fellowships for Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan literary fellowship, and a 2004 Wired Rave Award for writing on the effects of technology on the arts and humanities. In 2010 Utne Reader magazine named Solnit as one of the "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World". Her The Faraway Nearby (2013) was nominated for a National Book Award, and shortlisted for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award.

For River of Shadows, Solnit was honored with the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism and the 2004 Sally Hacker Prize from the Society for the History of Technology, which honors exceptional scholarship that reaches beyond the academy toward a broad audience. Solnit was also awarded Harvard's Mark Lynton History Prize in 2004 for River of Shadows. In 2003, she received the prestigious Lannan Literary Award.

She grew up in San Francisco and enrolled in an alternative schooling program and earned a GED instead of a high school diploma. At 19 she left for France, then returned to finish her undergraduate studies at San Francisco State University. She then earned a master's in journalism from UC Berkeley in 1984.

She is credited with the concept behind the term "mansplaining."...more

Other books in the series

“Men explain things to me, still. And no man has ever apologized for explaining, wrongly, things that I know and they don't.”
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“Every woman knows what I’m talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.”
—
92 likes